The adventures of me and my boat.

I passed these on my morning commute yesterday (biking along the Embarcadero). Turns out, there’s a youth America’s Cup in addition to the adult, although not advertised like the adult version. These boats look like so much fun. And they look a little sturdier than the adult versions.But oh look, just like in the main event, there are no female sailors (is it a rule or something?). Well, of course, everyone knows that girls don’t like boats

While visiting my parents recently, I helped them clean their basement, and came across a stack of old drawings I did when I was 6 years old (they were dated). This is what I kept drawing at age 6. Not princesses, not horses, not rainbows, I drew boats.

Guess I haven’t changed much! Hopefully, I’ve learned a thing or two about marine architecture.

Tuesday was a wonderful day to take off from work and go sailing with Skye, the next generation of sailor. She first was on the Indian Summer as a fetus, at which time her mother Cara had to be restrained from proving that she could pee overboard just like a guy. I like to share these stories with her kids. Anyway, Cara brought her two young ones along while I played hooky and we had a gorgeous day (look at that sky!) out on the bay. We got a brief distant glimpse of some of the America’s Cup boats running through their paces, but in general just sailed and talked and looked at stuff.

Skye is setting up to be a good sailor – she kept telling the Indian Summer what a good boat she is, which is clearly a good way to start. I was very impressed that both she and her brother were good junior sailors – they followed directions and didn’t complain about wearing their PFDs! I felt a little bad that younger brother Quinn doesn’t seem to be the natural that Skye is, as the rocking of the boat put him to sleep. However, he seemed to enjoy his nap in the V-berth and Cara was happy that he had his first nap all summer.

Tuesday was my birthday, so my boyfriend took me to Forbes Island (www.forbesisland.com) for dinner, as I’ve wanted to go for years, even thought it is considered something of a tourist trap perched as it is at the end of Pier 39. I loved it. From the instant you step foot on the kitschy tiki bar deck with palm trees, pirate figurine and real lighthouse, you can feel the entire structure gently rocking in the waves. We had dinner downstairs, which is actually underwater, and I was able to watch fish swim past a porthole as we dined and the chandelier swayed continuously overhead. And I felt awful.

I started to panic. Was I getting seasick for the first time in my life? What a dreadful birthday present that would be. Maybe it was just an ulcer, I thought hopefully.

Luckily, two days later I still feel like crap, so I can confirm that I was not actually seasick. Phew.

No photos to share (I couldn’t find my camera in the sidepocket of my backpack grrr.) but here’s a late report from Sunday at the last day of the America’s Cup pre-series in SF for August, which I went and watched live from shore.

Fantastic sunny day, which is really rare for that part of the bay in August. Mostly, fog never quite gets pushed out the gate, but it did that day. Nice winds, not too heavy, although when I later watched a second time on tv, they kept talking about how choppy the winds were making the water. I have to say, that was a millpond for this area!

Crowds were big but the races were so short it didn’t really matter. From shore, it was basically impossible to tell what was going on. The real high point for us was that Michael Johnson (we didn’t know it was him at the time) fell off Oracle 4 right off shore from us! We got to watch the safety boat go pick him up – it only took them about 30 seconds to get to him, so no biggie.

It was super exciting to see the boats racing, but honestly, I went home and watched again on tv so I could see all the nuts and bolts.

My daily commute takes me bicycling along the San Francisco Embarcadero, where over the past week I’ve watched tents setting up on Pier 32 for upcoming America’s Cup Trials. This morning, I got to see this:

Close examination shows that this is a highly fashionable boat, Prada no less.

I also got a glimpse of the hometown boat:

which wasn’t in the water yet.

I anticipate a pleasurable few weeks of watching these babies tip over repeatedly in the heavy winds of the bay!

I haven’t sailed much this summer – a combination of not feeling great and having a garden going insane with items that need to be canned on weekends – but I finally got the Indian Summer out for a spin yesterday. She was very happy to get off the dock and show that she isn’t one of those boats. You know, like her neighbor, who hasn’t been registered since 2001, and whose windows were recently stolen and no one even noticed.

The IS was happy to be sailing, but apparently mad at me for my recent neglect. Either that, or I had her over-reefed in anticipation of 20 knot winds that never materialized. Generally, she can sail quite close to the wind, but not yesterday. Our tacks were big swooping S’s and we spent more time being pushed sideways than I thought possible. I should have returned to dock and let the reef out a bit (I was alone and tacking up the Oakland Estuary, so couldn’t do it while sailing as on a Coronado, the reef is achieved by rolling the boom), but I kept thinking I’d be glad I kept the reef in later.

Wrong. I had a heart stopping moment when the wind died down as I approached the shore and was preparing to tack. With my limited sail area, I couldn’t get enough headway and found myself drifting towards docks. My options appeared to be either to t-bone a very expensive looking boat, hit the Alameda sheriff’s boat, or manage to scull the IS’s prow into the 5 ft of dock sticking between them. Chanting “hit the dock hit the dock hit the dock” I took the option that would not involve any other boats, and the IS nosed gently into the dock (she didn’t even get a scrape), without hitting either expensive boat or sheriff’s boat, which gave me the 30 seconds necessary to start the motor and back her out.

Why is it that every time you start to feel good about your skill at something, life comes along and bitch-slaps you back into reality?

The Indian Summer made it out for a blustery fun Summer Sailstice a few weeks ago on June 23. My stellar crew of Amy and Tony were along for the ride and took great photos as well as the video I already posted. The video was a demo the coast guard was doing, it looked like of a water rescue, as they came down really close to the water in the middle of the channel in front of Encinal Yacht Club, driving sailboats off to the edges, then dropped someone into the water and took off. Exciting to watch, but we had big plans, to head out to the bay and then back for libations at Jack London Square.

My poor roller furler didn’t hold up so well this time around – it worked for a bit, but then we noticed it was sagging quite a bit. The head cringle had come detached so the whole sail started to slide down. We furled it up (so easy!) and continued to sail, but I didn’t like the beating it was still taking as the head wouldn’t furl, so I went forward and dropped the whole thing, which was easy enough. Back to the drawing board for the roller furler system.

We sailed the rest of the day just on main, which was fine as plenty of wind. We got to practice man overboard drills to save Tony’s hat, then went ashore to celebrate a successful rescue. My crew had never been to Heinold’s so we went there and raised a glass to our patron saint, Jack London.

Throughout the day, we got to see this boat a number of times, out promoting the upcoming America’s Cup (BTW, someone tell my boss I’m going to need extensive time off next summer).